The subject matter herein relates generally to electrical connectors and more particularly to electrical connectors that use compensation components to enhance electrical performance.
Electrical connectors that are commonly used in telecommunication systems provide an interface between successive runs of cables and/or between cables and electronic devices in such systems. Some of such electrical connectors, such as modular jacks, are configured to be joined faith a mating plug and include a contact sub-assembly having a plurality of mating contacts. The mating contacts are arranged according to a known industry standard such as Electronics Industries Alliance/Telecommunications Industry Association (“EIA/TIA”)-568. Each of the mating contacts of the contact sub-assembly includes a mating interface that engages a corresponding electrical contact of the mating plug at a mating end portion of the contact sub-assembly. The contact sub-assembly may also include a plurality of wire terminating contacts at a wire terminating end portion of the contact sub-assembly. The wire terminating contacts may be electrically connected to the mating contacts via a circuit board. Connectors such as those described above have traditionally been used for data transmission. The performance of such electrical connectors used for data transmission may be negatively affected by, for example, near-end crosstalk (NeXT) generated by the mated plug and jack interface.
To compensate for the crosstalk, some known techniques have focused on arranging the mating contacts within a housing of the electrical connector to provide desired effects. However, controlled positioning of the mating contacts is difficult to achieve in manufacture or assembly and the electrical connectors tend to have a high amount of variation between different electrical connectors. Other known techniques for compensating for crosstalk include providing a printed circuit board (PCB) that electrically connects the mating and wire terminating contacts with compensation traces that are electrically connected to the mating contacts. However, the compensation traces electrically connect to the mating contacts at end portions thereof that are engaged with the PCB. As the end portions of the mating contacts are located a distance away from the mating interface, there is an electrical delay between the sources of crosstalk and the compensation traces. Such an electrical delay may increase the amount of crosstalk experienced by the electrical connector, thereby reducing the effectiveness that the NeXT compensation stage will cancel out the NeXT loss generated by the mated plug and jack interface.
Thus, a need remains for an electrical connector having a reduced amount of crosstalk relative to at least some other known electrical connectors.